French Youth use Internet to Plan Riots

By Paul Carrel

France's government is policing cyberspace as well as rundown suburbs in the battle to end two weeks of rioting.

Young rioters are using blog messages to incite violence and cellphones to organize attacks in guerrilla-like tactics they have copied from anti-globalisation protesters, security experts say.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has diverted resources to monitoring blogs -- short for Web logs -- in an effort to anticipate the movements of the protesters, who have set fire to thousands of cars since the unrest began on October 27.

Two youths were placed under official investigation, one step short of pressing charges under French law, early on Wednesday on suspicion of inciting violence over the Internet after urging people to riot in blogs, a judicial source said.

But tracking rioters' blogs is a big task for the security services, already stretched by the violence on the ground.

"This is a new dimension to take into consideration," said Internet security expert Solange Ghernaouti-Helie.

"To do the tracking on the Internet to identify the people involved is without doubt possible. But it requires considerable surveillance and analysis resources," she said.

Blogs are easy-to-publish Web sites where millions of people post commentary. Those allegedly posted by the two youths under investigation were made in online diaries hosted by Skyblog, a Web site belonging to popular youth radio station Skyrock.

Skyblog's site says it hosts over three million blogs, with thousands added each day. One of those urging people to riot -- since deactivated by Skyrock -- read: "Unite, burn the cops."

Some bloggers have urged people not to incite violence.

The host of bouna93.skyblog.com, a memorial blog for the two youths whose deaths sparked the riots, urged contributors to respect the dead boys, adding: "It would be preferable not to make racist, fascist comments or to give rendez-vous spots."

CELLPHONES

Youths are also using cellphones to coordinate the violence, mainly blamed on frustration over racism and unemployment, and to evade the police once the riots are underway.

"Text messages and mobile phones ... help small groups of rioters," said criminologist Alain Bauer. "They can connect easily. It's not only a way to avoid the police, it's a way to organize the fires."

The rioters have learned from anti-globalisation protesters, some of whom have used cellphones to coordinate riots at meetings of the Group of Eight industrial nations and the World Trade Organization in recent years, Bauer said.

"I think they learned from what they saw on television. I think anti-globalisation movements and rioters have the same way to organize -- or to disorganise the police," he said. "It's old guerrilla tactics with modern technology."

The political establishment is also harnessing technology to amass and organize support.

The ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) has tapped into intense Web traffic searching for information on the unrest to try to rally support for the tough line taken against rioters by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the party's president.

Since the weekend, searches on Google for words such as "riots" or "burned cars" in French have thrown up a link to a UMP site where readers are invited to put their names to a petition supporting Sarkozy's policy of "firmness."

A UMP official said more than 12,000 people had registered their support via the online petition since Sunday.

(Additional reporting by Thierry Leveque)

Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited.

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